My Rants by Bill Arends

My Rants

A new blog started by a friend of mine who went to school with in my days in Ottawa. This blog has promise to develop into something. Definately something to keep your eye on in the future! Best of luck with it Bill.

Central Park

Went for a small wanderance in Central Park this afternoon. Walked past the Central Park Zoo and the seals that seemed to be enjoying the sun while swimming around in their aquarium.

Upon this walk I realized how much I hate strollers. You know the strollers I am talking about. The ones that hold a single child in it either asleep, awake, or throwing a temper tantrum cause they wanted this or that. The major problem I have with the strollers, besides holding whiny children, is that it seems to slow down the mothers and fathers who push them. Perhaps it is the large bags of brick a brack that these wonderful parents have loaded the stroller down with. Anywho, they are just dead slow. Add to the problem that it is hard to pass them when in a crowd, nevermind when there are two strollers across.

Welcome to New York City, the city of pedestrians. Along with pedestrians today comes strollers. It also angers me that these wonderful people who push the strollers take the subway. Now lets stop here for a moment. Lets remember when the New York City subway system was built mostly. Yup, the subway system started in 1904, way before someone even dreamed up the obnoxious idea of a stroller. Therefore, many of the stations were built over or were not configured for the idea of an elevator. In fact, the idea of anybody needing devices like wheelchairs wasn't even thought of. Thus, many stairways are narrow and, in some cases, twisty and turney.

Now back to the ongoing saga. I, being the strapping young man that I am, are called upon to help out the poor shmucks who get off at stations without working elevators in order to lift the front end of the strollers (as well as everysingle package on the stroller including child sometimes) and walk up the stairs.

Even better is when the parent wants to attend to the screaming occupant of the stroller in downtown Manhatten. You see in Manhatten every single inch of sidewalk space is required in order to maintain a certain flow of pedestrian traffic. Add a single stopped stroller in the middle of the sidewalk, and chaos looms. It is not just people with strollers that stop in the middle of the sidewalk though that bother me, pedestrians that stop on a dime to look at the windows or some strange building. ARGH!

Anyway, I got on a tangent there with that whole stroller thingy. Back to Central Park. I walked through enjoying the beautiful old trees and clean walkways into the Rambler bird section. I walked up and around a couple of trails until I ran into a dozen people with their binoculors and expensive cameras out looking at, you won't believe it, simple American Goldfinches. I was flabbergasted. One of the most common birds that fight over the bird feeders back home in Canada.

I continued on up through the park admiring the wildnerness within a city of over 12 million people and yet it was very peaceful, except for the strollers! ARGH!

Tom's Restaurant

Tom's Restaurant, better known as "Restaurant" from Seinfeld, still looks exactly the same from the outside as it did on the old show.

I had the pleasant experience dining at this family restaurant on a big and juicy beef burger with all the fixins'.

"The inside of the restaurant?" you ask. Well, it is smaller than on the show, but looks a little similar to what George and Jerry might be sitting in with nothing but booths to sit in.

Did I see their apartment or the glow from the Kenny Roger's Chicken sign?

Nope, according to the NBC television special, the apartment outside is actually in Los Angeles and Kenny Rogers Chicken, if I remember correctly, went broke years ago.

But none the less, travelling to Tom's on the Upper west side is well worth the travel.

My subway adventure....what a small world....

So I was riding the subway last night in order to visit one of my favourite walking places in Manhatten. I was wearing my "Canadian Socks" (white socks with a Canadian flag on them). Someone asked if I was Canadian? I said of course I'm from Toronto. She said "Me Too!" We had a small conversation and apparently she has been brought down here from Scotiabank to work on Wall Street.

I just thought to myself, after she left the train, "what a small world". Now I am also thinking "good thing I wore the Canadian socks that I swear are too small for me."

You never know who you are going to run into in New York.

CBC Ottawa - Fan rebukes NHL from beyond the grave

CBC Ottawa - Fan rebukes NHL from beyond the grave

Um...like this is has to be haunting for all those involved in the NHL lockout dispute between the players and owners.

I know they have lost at least two tickets from myself. One to Madison Square Gardens to see the New York Rangers and another one to visit the New York Islanders. Nuff said...there are a lot of angry Canadians without hockey.

On another note, here in New York City there is really very little coverage on the NHL lockout. That will only hurt the NHL since it seems the media and, in turn, the fans will slowly forget about the NHL. That can only hurt the NHL since when hockey comes back, most fans will have forgotten to purchase seasons tickets and tickets for early games. Besides, if fans know about a game once hockey does come back, the fans will most likely be angry at the high priced players and refuse to purchase tickets in order to refuse to pay their salaries.

Message to NHL players, a salary cap is a must. Otherwise more NHL Teams will go bankrupt or move (i.e. Winnepeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques). Besides, why should a hockey player be payed 10 times more than a New York City School Teacher?

More snow...

So it is snowing in New York on a Saturday afternoon. Just one question, as a teacher in New York City, why couldn't it snow on a Sunday afternoon and evening instead? That would make two long weekends in a row. But, I guess I can only wishfully think and dream about it....cause it ain't gonna happen.

Toronto Sun: NEWS - Bill would make voting mandatory

Toronto Sun: NEWS - Bill would make voting mandatory

Making elections mandatory? Right this sounds like a good idea in theory. But I can already see more money being flushed down the toilet worse than the current gun registry bill. First would be to re-do the current permanent voters registration list. Hundreds of people at each election must register to vote period. This is because they have somehow been left off the voters registration list or there are errors on them. Add the fact that some university students are away from home during election time. I, for one, voted in Ottawa when I went to school at the University of Ottawa during one federal election in the last five years. I had to register at the polls while my name in Aurora was never crossed off the list. So under Harb's new law would I be fined for not voting in Aurora yet I still voted in Ottawa? I would think so since the federal government cannot even keep a simple thing like handling easy imputted information into a database for guns in order.

Add another interesting thing, there are dead people on the voters list probably. Would these people be fined and have their estates penalized because some bureaucrat in Ottawa doesn't know this person is dead? Why burden the families of the dead with yet another piece of paperwork to file in order to have their names removed from the voters list in order to avoid a potential fine. We already know how badly the government messed up the heating rebate cheques of a couple of years ago when people who rented (even though their heat was included in their rents by law) and the dead received cheques. That went over quite well with some people who never even saw a dime.

I would propose that government not head down this road until it has all the kinks worked out of the gun registry worked out. Try working on one problem at a time before creating yet another possible boondoggle after another. But then again, that might be too simple.